Newsletter – June 2018

June 2018

Housing & Homeless Services at
National Symposium

Members of our Housing & Homeless Services team joined staff from a variety of programs across the community – CommUnityCare, Dell Medical School, City of Austin EMS, Community Health Paramedics, and ECHO – at the 2018 National Health Care for the Homeless Conference & Policy Symposium, held last month in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They participated in two full days of intensive sessions at this annual gathering of clinicians, consumers, administrators, advocates and policymakers. We’ll keep you up to date on the innovative ideas they explored for the future of health care for the homeless.

We recently met with Audrey Kuang, a physician and the clinical lead for CommUnity Care’s ARCH/Mobile/Street clinic. The clinic provides full-service primary care to patients at the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless (ARCH). They have a mobile team that provides on-site medical care at several community locations and a street medicine team that provides care to those staying at encampments, bridge underpasses, and anywhere that care is needed.

What are your thoughts on the Housing First model? Why do you believe in it?
Without housing, you can’t do health. Housing is absolutely fundamental to a person’s wellbeing.

Assertive Community Treatment

Integral Care’s Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams provide intensive community-based treatment services for people in Travis County with complex needs who frequently use emergency health services and/or interact with the criminal justice system. They help people engage in ongoing and preventative mental health care, acquire and maintain stable housing and recover from substance use disorder. Two ACT teams and one Forensic Assertive Community Treatment (FACT) team serve up to 260 individuals in our community.

Integral Care’s Annual Report

Update on Housing First Oak Springs

Housing First Oak Springs will provide crucial—sometimes life-saving—services to individuals who have been chronically homeless, defined as an individual with a disabling condition who has been continuously homeless for a year or more.